


River Song and the Raiders of the Lost Ark

by HelloBenjamin



Series: The Adventures of River Song [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Indiana Jones, Gen, I mean everybody keeps comparing River to Indy, So yeah, basically just rewriting raiders to star River and the Doctor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-13
Updated: 2015-08-05
Packaged: 2018-04-09 05:26:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 19,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4335605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HelloBenjamin/pseuds/HelloBenjamin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>River Song as Indiana Jones. What more can I really say. Literally just the movie with a bit of variation. Some more different than others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Peru 1936

 

The sun was high and the air was hot and muggy. The cries of colorful birds and screeches of primates all but covered the sound of a machete hacking its way through the flora of the treacherous terrain. A small band followed it, local men mostly, faces set with uncertainty and fear over the quest they have taken part of. But the woman swinging the machete was a different kind of soul entirely.

Determination draped around her like a cloak and she wore a brown felt fedora on top of her wild, unkempt honey blonde hair. Despite the heat, she sported a brown leather jacket pockmarked with years of adventure. Her eyes gleamed with a love for danger matched with a gun and a whip hanging on either side of her hip. She had ice in her heart, a kiss on her lips, and a vulnerable side she kept well hidden.

Her name was River Song.

“They’re talking about the Curse again!” spoke a voice from behind River; one of the men guiding her through the rainforest, a man called Barranca. He turned back and yelled at his companions in the native language of the region, Quechua, his anger betraying his own fear.

River ignored the men’s fear, continuing her trek through the canyon they hiked through, hoping this was all that remained between her and her prize.

And at last, as if by the thought of it, the group reached a break in the canyon, entering a trail by which could be seen the current object of River’s desire, enshrouded in trees and dense foliage: the Temple of the Chachapoyan Warriors.

Their spot on the trail offered a stunning view of the temple. Or at least as stunning as a pile of ruins choked by plants could be. But that was of no matter. It proved the temples existence. And if River was right, and she almost always was, inside laid a historical treasure countries would go to war over. She was determined to get a hold of it and take it back to England, where it could be properly researched, before that could happen.

A rustle behind her shook River out of her musings and she turned back in time to watch three of the men who followed her here run away in terror of the sight, dropping their bags as the fled. She heard Barranca shouting after them again, this time raising his pistol to shoot them. River restrained him, with a strength that seemed to surprise the man.

“No,” she told him. She knew what this place meant to these people. She wasn’t about to force them in by gun point or shoot them for desertion. That was not how she worked. “We don't need them.”

Barranca glared at her. “I do not carry supplies,” he said, gesturing at the dropped packs.

“We'll leave them. Once we've got it, we'll be able to reach the plane by dusk,” River responded and carried on, not looking back at the man.

The party split up, searching around the ruins for a way in. One of the men, Satipo, pulled something out of a tree and showed it to River.

“The Hovitos are near. The poison is still fresh... three days. They're following us, I tell you.”

River smiled at the man reassuringly, “If they knew we were here, they would have killed us already.”

The two other remaining men started to jabber away in near hysteria followed by Barranca, now drenched in sweat with eyes darting around in just as much fear, doing what River quickly realized to be his favorite hobby: shouting at the poor fools.

River ignored them and continued hacking her way through trees, closely followed by Satipo and Barranca. More rustling of things running in the opposite direction came from behind them.

 _That’s two more gone_ , River thought without looking back.

They moved around the edge of foliage until they came upon an opening, surrounded by opulent, dark friezes. It was large and round, with large curving stone spikes coming out from the top of the arch and from the ground at their feet, like a massive jaw waiting to eat anyone who dared enter: the entrance of the temple.

“So this is where Forrestal cashed in,” River said, thinking aloud.

“A friend of yours?” asked Satipo.

“Competitor. He was good, very good.”

Barranca looked on nervously, “No one has ever come out of there alive. Why should we put our faith in you?”

River continued ignoring the man, kneeling down, she pulled a large, wonky shaped feather out from the brim of her hat. From around its point, she slipped off a tightly rolled piece of parchment. The two men knelt down beside her as she spread the parchment out on the ground, revealing it to picture one-half of the temple’s floor plan. River fixed a stare on Satipo, who pulls out a folded piece of parchment. The other half of the plan.

River studied the two parchments, “Assuming that pillar there marks the corner and...” the sound of a gun cocking threw her off. She glanced up behind her to see Barranca, his pistol pointed straight at her face.

She moved gracefully, fast but unhurried, grabbing the whip at her left side and flinging it at the Peruvian. The fall of the whip wrapped itself around Barranca's hand and pistol. He could not drop the gun now if he tried.

River pulled the whip back, yanking Barranca’s arm along with it, causing him to let off a shot into the ground. She gave the whip some slack in hope that the man would take it as a warning, but he simply took it as an opportunity to re-aim, cocking the gun with his free hand. Oh, how River wished people wouldn’t do that.

She pulled her whip arm up in a wide arc, spinning Barranca in it and wrapping him in the whip. With his gun hand stuck against his body, River gave the whip another tug and the gun gave off another shot. Barranca fell to the ground dead.

River gazed at the body sadly before looking up at the remaining man.

“I just can’t meet any decent men these day,” she said nonchalantly. She pulled her whip off from around the body and continued on into the temple.

It was first and foremost dark, the light from the torches she and the now completely terrified Satipo carried barely allowing them to see ten feet in front of them. It was secondly terribly damp. Vegetation still managed to cling to the walls despite the lack of light. Stalactites hung down far enough to decapitate those who failed to avoid them.

They made their way through a tunnel, avoiding spiders. River went through niches and ledges in the walls along the way, picking up pocket-sized artifacts and quickly and expertly evaluating them, discarding some and sticking others in her jacket or knapsack; never stopping her forward progress.

Finally, they came to an arch in the hall beyond which laid a small, brightly lit chamber. River braced an arm in front of her companion to prevent him from going in yet.

“What's wrong? Are you lost?” he asked.

In response, River picked up a stick and threw it through the shaft of light directly ahead. A loud clang resonated through the room as rows of metal spikes flew out of the walls before them. And impaled on them was the carcass of a man dressed in the remains of clothing similar to that with River current wore.

“Forrestel,” River stated, pulling the carcass off the spikes as they started slowly retracting, “must have gone in before he gave his eyes time to adjust. I did warn him!”

“We can go no further,” Satipo gulped.

“Now, Satipo, we don't want to be discouraged by every little thing,” River said before moving sideways through the chamber, back against the very spikes that would run through if she stepped one toe into the row of light in front of her. Satipo hesitated, but followed after her.

Out of the light room, they went down a stairway leading to a tight landing. A carefully strung network of dead vines framed the small entryway. The landing at their feet was covered in human skeletons, crushed flat.

River looked up at the ceiling and then sent Satipo a glance, a glare really, warning him not to start panicking again. “Try not to touch the vines,” she added.

They entered another room, longer than the last. Sunlight basked the door at the other end.

“Señora, I think we are very close,” urged Satipo, “Let us hurry. There is nothing to fear here.”

“That’s what scares me,” was all River responded.

They both headed done the hall, Satipo leading by a fraction. Without warning, the floor gave way under the foot. River’s grip on him was the only thing that kept him from falling to his death.

River took out her whip and hit it against the floor in front of them, causing fifteen feet of the ‘floor’ to fall away. A rock dropped into it told them that it would be a long way to fall.

Thinking quickly, River glanced around the area above to find a way across. Spotting a solid looking support beam centered directly above the middle of the chasm, she arced her arm back and flung her whip to twist around it, giving her a way to swing across, which she did after testing the weight. She swung the whip back over to her companion who hesitated a moment before following her over. River jammed the handle of the whip into a hole in the wall beside her, leaving it strung to the beam in case of the need for a quick retreat.

They stepped through the next doorway into a large, domed room. The final room in the temple: the Sanctuary. Several more sunbeams, River was being to wonder if she could have lowered herself down through one of those, cast the room in light, highlighting the intricately patterned floor of faded white and black tiles.

In the center of the room lay River prize: a small, solid gold totem with large rubies for eyes. All River needed was to get to it and it would be hers.

Before she began her cross, though, she took an old torch from its perch beside the entryway behind them. She touched one end against a white tile. Nothing. She touched it against a black title. _Whish!_ A dart clung to the top of the torch in River’s hand.

 _Right, white good, black bad. Terribly cliché_ , thought River.

She told Satipo to wait, an order the man seemed happy to comply to, and set to crossing the room. A slow dance requiring much of her attention lest she end up skewered with poisoned darts.

After a few tense moments, she reached the end of the tiled floor and walked up the last steps to the alter.

River gazed at the small idol, both fierce and beautiful she thought, on its polished pedestal for a few moments before pulling out a small canvas bag and filling it with dirt from the floor around the alter. She periodically glanced to and from the idol as she added and removed dirt from the sack, trying to calculate by eye the exact weight of it.

Bouncing the sack in her hand, certain of its matching weight, she slowly and steadily shifted it by the idol. She held her breath as she slide the idol off as she placed the sack in its place. If she failed to keep an equal amount of weight distributed across the two, the ancient pressure pad the idol had sat on for centuries would trigger… god only knew what.

Finally, with the idol in hand and the sack safely in its place on the pedestal, River lets out her breath and turns and walks back down the stairs, ready to make the reverse trip through the temple, it was always easier to break out of these places, and head to the nearby river where her friend Jack Harkness waited with his plane to fly her back to England.

But as she reached the edge of the tiled floor, she heard a heavy grating sound of stone on stone from behind her. She twisted around to face the pedestal again. It had already sunken five inches into its base and seemed intent to sink a few more. The entire room began shaking with a strange mechanical rumble.

“Damn it,” River said before hightailing it across the tiled floor. No time to worry about the darts from the walls, she’d just have to outrun them.

Chunks of rock start falling around her as she passed Satipo, who turned to run with her. They reached the edge of the chasm and Satipo swung across ahead of River. But just as he hit the other side, the whip slipped off its perch.

“Throw me the whip!” River shouted after him.

“No time to argue. Throw me the idol, I throw you the whip. You have no choice! Hurry!”

River contemplated this for a moment. Could she really trust this man? She had already been attacked by one of these men, could she really… no, he was right, there was no time to argue. She’d have to trust him.

She lobed the idol over the pit into Satipo’s outreached arm. He tucked the idol under his jacket and looked back at River.

“Adios, amiga,” and with that the backstabbing bastard dropped the whip and ran off. River really couldn’t meet any decent men these days.

River did the only thing she could think of. She backed up to the entryway behind her, ran back to the pit, and jumped.

For a moment she flew, it was one of those moments where she felt more alive than ever, where anything was possible. She felt invincible in these moments, all consequences forgotten in an instant because she knew she would make it every time. She loved it.

Unfortunately, she didn’t make it.

She almost had. Her toes found purchase on the edge of the floor, but with all her weight over her heels, she ended up slipping down into the pit, just barely managing to grip at crumbling floor and a half dead root before falling in.

So slight loss of dignity there.

She pulled herself up over the edge, glad nobody was around to see that and continued running down the hall.

She flew past the vines, though more figuratively this time and stumbled ungracefully down the stairwell.

A sound from ahead stopped her in her tracks. The sound of crashing metal met with a blood curdling scream. Satipo.

She swept into the light chamber, moving slower as to steer clear of the light beams and to look for whatever was left of Satipo. She spotted him midway through. Spikes protruded all through him. His face, under a spike directly in the middle of his forehead, was a picture of fear to which would remain forevermore.

River reached into his jacket and got back the idol. “Adios,” she told the unhearing corpse.

She slipped around the rest of beams and left the room, back on the incline out. The rumbling, however, was louder than ever. River turned back around. Then looked up. Rolling down a steep ramp above the doorway was a boulder the exact size of the corridor.

River cursed several times before running as fact as she could down the corridor, desperately trying to beat it down.

She jumped again as she neared the field of light at the opening of the temple, flying through the air once more as she passed through the stone jaw, narrowly beating out the boulder, which remained jammed in place by the teeth.

River crashed down and rolled to a stop a dozen feet away. She started to laugh, still lying on the ground, but cut herself off as a shadow fell above her.

Looming above were three figures. Two of them held long blow guns and wore nothing but loincloths and battle paint: the Hovitos Warriors. But the third…

“Hello, Emile,” said River, taking in the man’s full safari gear, including, dear god, was that a pith helmet?

The man, Emile Belloq, smiled down at River and spoke with a heavy French accent, “Dr. Song, you choose the wrong friends. This time it will cost you.”

He suck out his hand, clearly referring to the idol.

“Well, you know how men are, Emile. Happy to get involved with a pretty girl, but terribly afraid of commitment,” River said. She fought the urge to shove the precious idol down his throat as she handed to him. It would not have done well for her pride to have avoided being crushed by the boulder only to be shot by the locals.

“That’s funny Dr. Song,” Belloq took the idol and held it up to gaze at it, “And you thought I'd given up,” he gloated.

River glanced back at the Hovitos, “Too bad they don't know you like I do, Belloq.”

“Yes, too bad,” Belloq said, “You could warn them... if only you spoke Hovitos.”

Belloq turned dramatically and held the idol high above his head. River looked across the tree line to see what he was showing it to and let off a string of profanity in her head at what she saw. Belloq had brought more than two of the tribesmen with him. Far more.

The Hovitos stared at the idol and began kneeling at it. River didn’t see what they did next as she made a break for it.

\---

Jack flung his fishing lure back out. He was full aware of how long it may take River to make it through a booby-trapped building, and knew she fully expected him to be here when she inevitably crawled out covered in dust and god knows what else, but it had still been awhile and he was getting bored.

He sat at the base of his plane, one of those amphibian ones he’d named Torchwood, contemplating what he’d do once he got River back to London. Probably find that handsome Welshman who worked at the museum River would take whatever she had gotten from that pile of rocks, what was his name? Ianto Jones? Yeah, he could show Ianto Jones a good time.

His train thought got interrupted though as he saw the unmistakable figure of River Song running over the crest of the hill just off the water edge. It was about time.

It looked like she was shouting something. Jack strained to hear what it was as she ran ever closer.

“What’s that, start the...” he started to think aloud before being interrupted as several dozen shouting, scantily dressed men with what looked like spears crested the hill, running after River, “oh, start the plane.”

He scrambled up the Torchwood into the back pilot seat and started flipping switches. The engine flared up as River reached the plane and they were moving before she had even clambered into the front seat.

As they hit the sky above the tree line, safe from the men below throwing their spears vainly in attempt to hit the plane, Jack watched River relax in the seat in front of him. He was about to set course for England when he saw her jump halfway out of her seat.

“Jack! There’s a snake! There’s a snake in the plane!” she shrilled. In all the time Jack had known her, he had never heard River Song shrill.

“Oh, that’s just Cockpit Reggie,” he laughed, “He wouldn’t hurt a soul.”

“I hate snakes, Jack!” she shouted, “I hate them!”

“The world’s full of them, you know. Show a little backbone,” Jack continued laughing as he set course for London, England.

The premier archeologist of the United Kingdom and the toughest person he knew, and she was afraid of snakes.


	2. Chapter 2

London, England

 

A few days later saw River back at her other job. Something at times more dangerous than running from an army, more trying than sorting out an ancient puzzle, more tedious than dealing with foreign political officials, and more nerve-wracking than hanging off the side of a cliff. She was back teaching at university.

And she loved it just as much as the thrill of her adventures.

“…Neo, and lithic meaning stone,” River wrote out the word on the board, mostly as a way to avoid the horny stares of most of the male students and quite a few of the female ones, “All right, now let’s get back to this Turkpean barrow near Hazelton.”

River continued her lecture, stuttering occasionally when some boy keep ogling her chest too much and, did that girl’s eye lids say ‘I love you’?

She was in the middle of explaining the difference between archeology and grave robbing when the door opened and a man with a rather beaky nose walked in. He stood of to the side by the door, letting her finish her lecture.

“And the undisturbed chamber were found at…” the bell rang and the students began filing out of class, “That’s it for today then. Don’t forget Osgood, chapters four and five for next time. And I will be in my office on Thursday, but not Wednesday.”

River turned her attention to the man waiting for her. He was the dean of the college, Rory Williams. But River knew him better by another name.

“Hello Dad.”

“Hello River,” Rory greeted before hugging her, “Glad to see you back okay.”

“How’s Mum?” asked River.

“Scottish as ever,” her father answered, “Still has her nose buried in that journal and complaining about the food in the canteen.”

“Good old Mum.”

“So how’d it go?” Rory asked. River looked away, choosing to glare down at the floor instead, still upset at herself for letting herself be had so easily. “That bad, huh?”

“I had it, Dad. I had it my hand,” River said.

“What happened?” asked Rory, picking up an apple left on River’s desk by a student.

“Guess.”

“Belloq?” River huffed, “Damn bastard caught me on the way out of the temple. Wanna hear about it.”

“No thanks, I’d rather have some plausible deniability about whatever trouble you did over there,” her father joked, sticking the apple under his jacket, “Speaking of which, that’s why I came over here in the first place. There’s a person here who wants to see you. Army intelligence or something. I think he’s American. They seemed to know you were coming before I did… You didn’t do anything illegal recently, did you?”

“Did I forget to mention? I stole a foreign dignitary’s car,” River smiled.

“What, again?” Rory said flabbergasted, “River, you can’t keep doing this, you’re gonna end up in prison.”

“You’re so gullible,” River said and kissed her father on the cheek.

\---

“Dr. Song, I’ve heard a great deal about you.”

“Funny, I know nothing about you,” River looked the man in front of her up and down. He radiated both American and government stooge like he was the sun of them. She could also tell by looking at him that he was most definitely _not_ Army intelligence.

River could read most people easily, but it wasn’t a talent she liked people to know about. It was an advantage she would not let go off easily.

“Sorry, manners. Canton Delaware. The third,” he stuck his arm out for a hand shake. River didn’t take it.

River and her father were now standing in the lecture hall with this Canton person, on a platform near the center with a conference table the three were now seating themselves at.

“Professor of Archeology,” Canton continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted, “Expert on the occult, and, ah, how does one say it? Obtainer of rare antiquities.”

“Are you going to tell me why you’re here, or are you just going to list off my credentials all day?”

Canton leaned back and smiled knowingly at her. Damn, he knew how she could read people.

“You studied under Professor Lem at Cambridge?” he stated. River sat straighter in her chair. That statement wasn’t just about her credentials.

“Tasha Lem. Yes, I did.”

“You have no idea of her present whereabouts?”

“Ah, just rumors really, somewhere in Asia, I think,” River said worried. What could this man want with old Tash? “I haven’t really spoken to her for ten years. We were friends, but…” River paused a moment, memories of that time coming back to her. Not of Tasha, but of… no, she shouldn’t think of him right now. “We had bit of a falling out, I’m afraid.”

Canton leaned forward, suddenly very serious, “Dr. Song, you must understand that this is all strictly confidential. Yesterday afternoon our European sections intercepted a German communique that was sent from Cairo to Berlin. See, over the last two years, the Nazis have had teams of archeologists running around the world looking for all kinds of religious artifacts. Hitler’s a nut on the subject. He’s crazy! Obsessed with the occult.”

“And right now, apparently there’s some kind of German archeological dig going on in the desert outside of Cairo. Now we’ve got some information here, but we can’t make anything out it on it and maybe you can.” Canton pulled out a folder. “Tanis development proceeding… acquire headpiece, Staff of Ra. Tasha Lem, U.K.”

River thumped the table. “The Nazis have discovered Tanis!” she shouted. She stood up and moved around the table, over to a pile of books left on one end of it.

“Just what does this mean to you, Tanis?” Canton asked.

River shared a look with her father before explaining, “The city of Tanis is one of the possible resting places of the Lost Ark.”

“The Lost Ark?”

“The Ark of the Covenant. The chest the Hebrews used to carry around the Ten Commandments in.”

“What do mean ‘the Commandments?” asked Canton, “You mean _the_ Ten Commandments?!”

“Yes, the actual Ten Commandments,” River said. For a man with so much knowledge on things, he was a bit slow on the uptake. “The original stone tablet that Moses brought down out of Mount Horeb and smashed, if you believe that sort of thing. The Hebrews took the broken pieces and put them in the Ark. When they settled in Canaan, they put the Ark in a place called the Temple of Solomon.”

“In Jerusalem,” Rory injected.

“Where it stayed many years,” continued River, “Until all of a sudden, whoosh, it’s gone.”

“Where?” Canton asked.

“Well, nobody knows where or when,” River said.

“However,” Rory said, taking reins of the conversation at last, “an Egyptian pharaoh… ah…”

“Shishak,” offered River.

“Yes, Shishak invaded the city of Jerusalem around round about nine eighty B.C. And they may have taken the Ark back to the city of Tanis. And hidden it in a secret chamber called the Well of Souls.”

“Secret chamber,” Canton said in disbelief.

Rory continued as if the man hadn’t said anything, “However, about a year after the pharaoh returned to Egypt, the city of Tanis was consumed in by the desert in a sandstorm that lasted a whole year. Wiped clean by the wrath of God.”

Canton smiled, “You two make quite the daddy daughter team. I came to the right people. You two seem to know all about this Tanis.”

“No, not really,” River said, “Tasha was the real expert. She did the first serious work on Tanis. Collected some of its relics. It was her obsession, really. But she never found the city."

“Frankly, we’re suspicious of Ms. Lem,” said Canton, “An Englishwoman being mentioned so… promptly in a secret Nazi cable…”

“Rubbish, Tasha’s no Nazi,” Rory almost shouted.

“Well then, what do the Nazis want her for?”

River looked the man up and down again, “Well obviously the Nazis are looking for the Staff of Ra, and they think Tash has got it.”

“I thought Ra was an Egyptian god. What does it have to do with the Ark? …Don’t answer that. What exactly is a headpiece to the Staff of Ra?” Canton asked.

“Well the staff is just a stick,” explained River, “Nobody really knows how tall, but it’s capped with an elaborate headpiece in the shape of the sun, with a large crystal in the middle. And so what you did was take this staff to a special room in Tanis. A map room with a miniature model of the city all laid out on the floor. And if you put the staff in a certain spot in it at a certain time of day, the sun would shine through the crystal and reveal the Well of Souls.”

Canton leaned back in his chair, clearly fed up with the lecture, “Where the Ark of the Covent was kept?”

“Which is exactly what the Nazis are looking for,” River worried.

Canton huffed, “And do you happen to know what this Ark looked like?” “Hold on, should have a picture right here.” River pulled one of the books out of its stack on the table; a large, centuries old manuscript with a rusted latch on its cover. River opened it to around the two-thirds point and flipped through the pages till she found the one she wanted. It was a picture depicting a large cradle topped with statues of angles. It was being carried by two men, lifting it by two rods running alongside the base of the lid. Coming from the Ark were beams of light, possibly fire or lighting, striking down an army in the distance.

“Good God!” exclaimed Canton.

“Yes,” Rory agreed, “That’s just what the Hebrews thought.

\---

That night, River repacked her backs. Never really unpacked them, though. Never the right time.

Her father had set it up with Mr. Canton Delaware the third. She was going to try to find the Ark before the Nazis.

She knew where she had to start. She had to find Tasha Lem and get the headpiece of the Staff of Ra, if she had it.

She wondered if he was still with her. Her son, Johnathan. And a life time of regret for her.

She told herself she didn’t want to see him, squashing down, to no avail, the hope that she would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And introducing Rory in place of Marcus Brody. But not as much of Rory in this as I would've liked. Maybe if I get to Last Crusade, which Brody was in more of.
> 
> Also, setting up Amy as Sean Connery. She'd be proud.


	3. Chapter 3

Nepal

 

The crowd was getting restless, the shouts of the men and few women crowding around the one small table near the center of the bar drowning out the sound of howling wind and heavy falling snow. Sheets of paper passed hands, people prematurely cashing in bets, as the man opposite the Doctor sat a ninth drained shot glass upside down on the table in front of him.

The Doctor pulled up a tenth one for himself. He hated the taste of alcohol, but he had a ridiculously high tolerance to it that suited him to drinking competitions like this. And they brought in a lot of money. He needed every dime he could get to be able to leave this ice box they called a country. Especially if he wanted to return to England in style, which he did.

He downed the shot and flipped it in front of him staring the other man down in challenge. The man was red as a tomato and was giggling harder than Father Christmas. The Doctor could already tell the man was going to pass out before he finished the next shot.

Eleven doctorates from bleeding Cambridge, three earned before he even turned eighteen, and this was what he was stuck doing with his life.

The shouting around him increased in volume and money made one final pass around as two other men dragged the Doctor’s half-conscious opponent out of the bar.

The money finished passing around as the Doctor collected his own winnings then started shooing everyone out in order to close up. He moved back around the fire pit in the center of the room back to the bar, picking up empty bottles and used glasses along the way, and pulled out his cash box, placing his winnings in with the rest of his earnings.

He heard the door open again, accompanied by a harsh, cold breeze.

“We’re closed,” he told the figure entering his bar. He froze, though, the moment he saw those unmistakable curls piled under a familiar battered, old up hat.

“River Song. Always knew some day you’d come walking back through my door,” the Doctor smirked, “Never doubted it. Something made it inevitable.”

A smile crept onto River’s face, “Hello John. Or are you still going by that ridiculous nickname.”

“Oh yes, you can talk River,” he slammed his box closed, “As I said, we’re closed. You want something to drink you should go elsewhere. In fact, you should go elsewhere anyway.”

River ignored this and continued, “So how many is it now? Because you only had five doctorates last time I saw you, working on another and what, three bachelors?”

“Eleven. It’s eleven now,” he replied, dropping the subject of leaving. She’d just continue to ignore him anyway.

“Working on any others?” she asked.

“Oh no, no. I figured eleven was plenty. Nice number, eleven. Nice round…ish number…”

“They kicked you out, didn’t they?”

“Yeah.” The Doctor shook himself. He couldn’t let himself slip back into easy talking with her as if no time had passed. As if she hadn’t ruined his life. “I know you didn’t come all the way to Nepal just to have a chat. So what is it you want, Song?”

“I need one of the pieces of your mother’s collection,” said River, “a large bronze piece, with a hole in it, off center, with a crystal. You know the one I’m talking about?”

“Yeah, I know it,” the Doctor replied. He moved behind the counter, putting as much distance between himself and River as possible.

From the corner of his eye he saw River frown and shuffle a bit. She opened her mouth to say something, but then shut it again.

“Where’s Tasha?” she asked after a moment, “Doctor, where’s Tasha?”

The Doctor turned around, leaned back on the bar, and signed, “Tasha’s dead.”

River joined him behind the counter, a sad look in her eye, placing a hand on his forearm in silent sorrow for him. He gazed down at it. It’d been a long time since he felt River’s touch. He didn’t realize how much he missed…

“No,” the pulled quickly away from River and fled from behind the bar, once again trying to put distance between them, “No. You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to do what you did and leave and then just come back out of the blue like nothing happened! And you weren’t there when Tash died. You could’ve been, but you weren’t.”

He collapsed in the chair closest to the central fireplace.

“I learned to hate you in the last ten years,” he said.

“I can only say sorry so many times,” River replied, moving over to sit opposite him.

“… Say it again anyway.”

River took his hand from across the table between them, looking him in the eye before speaking, “Sorry.”

The Doctor pulled his hand away.

“Yeah, everybody’s sorry for something,” he said, “Tash was sorry for dragging me around this world looking for her bits of junk. I’m sorry for still being stuck in this dive… Everyone’s sorry for something.”

River’s sighed, resolve gone. “It’s just a worthless bronze medallion, Doctor. Do you have it?”

“Maybe. Don’t know where it is.”

“Well maybe you can find it,” River huffed, “Look, I’ve got two thousand pounds.”

She shuffled around her jacket pockets and pulled out a roll of notes and handed it to him.

The Doctor stifled a laugh, “Well it’s enough to get me back. But not in style.”

River smiled, “I can get you another two when we get back to England. Trust me. You know the piece. You know where it is. I know you do, John.”

“Come back tomorrow,” he laughed.

“Why?”

“Because I said so, that’s why.”

River smiled wider and got up to leave. She turned back, though, before leaving the tableside.

“You did love it, though,” she said.

“Loved what?” asked the Doctor.

“The traveling. Being dragged around the world looking for Tasha’s bits of junk.”

The Doctor laughed, full and heavily this time as River continued her walk to the door.

“Hey!” River froze at the doorway at the Doctor’s shout, “See you tomorrow, River Song.”

The Doctor still gazed at the door behind her five minutes later, smiling. He hated to admit it, but he’d missed her.

He tore his gaze away, his smile slipping away into a frown. He reached under the neck of his shirt and pulled the chain around his neck off. It slithered out from under his shirt, revealing at the end a large, bronze medallion with a small, red crystal set in it just off center, Egyptian hieroglyphs surrounded the crystal on both sides.

The Doctor watched as the medallion twirled around on the end of the chain in his hand, reflecting the light of the fire by him across his face. If River wanted this then she must be looking for…

The door opened again. The Doctor sighed as he slammed the medallion onto the table and stood up to move towards the door again.

“The bar’s closed,” he told the people entering his bar. There were four of them: three men so nondescript that the Doctor knew he would never remember their faces, and a woman with an eyepatch and facial expression that made her look like she wanted to consume the souls of every child on Earth.

“Oh, we’re not here for a drink,” the woman spoke with a voice that matched her expression.

The Doctor began backtracking away from the newcomers, becoming increasingly terrified just by their presence.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“The same thing your friend, Doctor Song wanted,” Eye-patch lady said, moving closer in a creep, “Surely she told you there would be… other interested parties.”

“Must have slipped her mind,” the Doctor responded, gathering back his courage. This was his establishment and he wasn’t about to let four vaguely menacing people take control of the situation.

“The woman is… nefarious,” Eye-patch lady loomed over the Doctor, making him duck back behind the counter for distance, “I hope for your sake she hasn’t acquired it”

“Why? Are you willing to offer more?” asked the Doctor. Of course, he didn’t intend on given it to her, the strange woman didn’t exactly excrete trust. Nor did she seem to have much in the way of observational skills given how she swept right by the table with what she wanted resting on it.

“Oh, almost certainly. Do you still have it?”

“No,” the Doctor bluffed, “But I know where it is.”

“Your fire appears to be dying,” the woman said to the Doctor’s surprise. She stood on the opposite of the pit as the medallion. He watched as she pulled an iron poker from its hook above it and started poking it around in the flames. “Why don’t you tell me where the piece is right now?”

“I don’t know who you’re used to dealing with, but nobody tells me what to do in my place,” the Doctor told her.

His face unexpectedly met the counter as one of the men, whom the Doctor hadn’t even seen come around, slammed him against it and held him down.

“Blimey,” he struggled to get out of the man’s grip only to end up with his arm twisted up his back in retaliation, “What do you do to the ones who mess up?”

He couldn’t see much from this angle, what with half his face still shoved against the counter top, but he was able to sense Eye-patch lady walking over to him. Once she was in his line of vision, he saw that she still held the poker, its tip glowing burnt-orange. Panic surged in him and he began struggling anew.

“No, no, wait a minute. I can be reasonable. You don’t have to use that, I’ll tell you everything,” he begged.

“Yes, I rather think you will,” she swung the poker so close to his face that he could feel the heat rolling off of it.

A shot rang off around the room, causing the woman to drop the poker.

“Let him go!” a voice rang off like the bullet.

The grip around him slackened and he pushed back, shoving the man who had been holding him into the wall behind them.

“River Song, I could bloody kiss you!” he shouted at the figure.

“Why thank you, Sweetie. But I’ll have to take you up on that offer later,” River smirked.

“What? No! I didn’t mean- I was just-”

“Sweetie, shut up. Duck.”

She pointed her gun directly at him and he dove behind the bar counter. The man who he had shoved against the wall, who had just been about to grab him again, fell dead beside him.

He crawled around down below trying to find something to defend himself with- nothing down here but old bottles of liquor. He listened to ruckus going on, unable to see what was going on from his position. There was the rapid pace firing of a machine gun- did those men even have a machine gun when they walked in? -that ended with the sound of a cracking whip. More gun fire followed, alongside what sounded like punching and a tremendous crash. The room got suddenly brighter and the temperature felt like it went up about a hundred degrees.

There was a thud against the opposite side of the counter beside him. He peeked over the counter and saw River sitting against it, grappling with one of the other men, who held her in a choke hold. The Doctor did what anyone else would’ve done in this situation:

He handed her a bottle of rum.

River stared at it in confusion for a moment before hitting the man upside the head with it.

He took in the scene in front of him. It looked like the third man was already dead across the room, body left straddled in the remains of a table. But the more pressing issue was the fire.

It had spread across room in blaze, having already consumed most of the upturned, wooden chairs and tables around it. If the flame reached the alcohol before he and River got out, it wouldn’t matter who won the fight. But before he could inform River on this, he saw his medallion on the floor by the edge of the flames.

Unfortunately, Eye-patch lady, who was still alive and still in the room, saw it too.

He leapt over the counter, leaving River to finish with the last man on her own and ran after the medallion. The woman, who had been much closer and didn’t have a bar in her way, reached it first. She grabbed it full in her hand and began what the Doctor could only describe as an evil chuckle, but that chuckle turned into a scream of pain with the sound of searing flesh as the heated metal burned her. She dropped the medallion and scurried away, the Doctor assumed to stick her hand into a pile of snow to cool it. There were plenty outside to choose from.

The Doctor pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and grabbed the medallion with it instead. As soon as he stood back up, River came up from behind him, grabbed his open hand and ran; dragging him across the room, opposite the way Eye-patch Lady had run, and out of the burning building.

Fire consumed the building. The Doctor just stood there, watching what had been his life for the past few years go up in flames. His mother had left him that building. It was one of the only things he had left of her. And now it was gone, like her.

“Well Song,” he shouted over the roar of flames, “You still know how to show a fella a good time!”

“You could try thanking me for saving your life!” she shouted back.

“Yeah? Well I’ll tell you what! Until I get back my four grand, you’re getting more than you bargained for!” he thrust out the medallion for her to see, “I’m your goddamn partner!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello Doctor.
> 
> And hello Kovarian. Oh how I cannot wait to have your face melt off.


	4. Chapter 4

Cairo

 

River watched the Doctor wave his bandy arms above his head, teaching the gaggle of children that now surrounded him something he called the Drunk Giraffe. She wasn’t sure whether it was a dance or some form of physical defense, but it was nice to see him happy. Especially after all that sulking he denied doing on the flight over to Egypt.

They had arrived in the city earlier that day and had been met by an old friend of River’s, a man named Sallah; whose home they were now on the rooftop veranda of, and whose children crowded around the Doctor mimicking his arm movements.

“Your friend is a strange one,” Sallah said, sitting beside River, watching the scene with her, “I can see why you like him. Tell me, are you two…?”

River glanced away from the Doctor and down at the table they sat at. That had been something she wondered about the entire trip over from Nepal: the possibility of her and the Doctor reviving their old relationship. Originally, she intended nothing of the sorts. Before entering that bar in Nepal, she had resolved to keep things strictly business between them, to let none of their past come up; she was only there to get the headpiece.

But then she saw those big sad eyes of his. She was never able to get past those eyes, like a kicked puppy.

When he told her about his mother’s death, she wanted nothing more than to wrap her arms around him and cling on till the end of days, but she knew he wouldn’t let her. She knew what she did to him he wouldn’t forgive easily.

She still remembered when they met thirteen years previously, him too young, and her too reckless; more than reckless enough to not care if she broke a person, used them. And she did use him, a vulnerable, infatuated kid, to fulfill her every filthy lust. And that’s all he was to her at first. Only after she fell in love with him did she realize what she did. But her recklessness still remained and her anger at herself turned against him, causing him more damage to him and a rift to form between them. So she left, because that was the only thing she could think to do to save him from herself.

But time had passed since then. They were both more grounded now. If he could forgive her for what she did in the past, maybe they could have a better future together.

And seeing him with those kids…

But there were more pressing issues to deal with at the moment. Namely the Ark.

“I knew the Germans would hire you Sallah. You’re the best digger in Egypt,” River said, ignoring his implied question.

Sallah poured them both more wine, “My services are entirely inconsequential to them. The hirer shanghaied every digger in Cairo. The excavation is enormous! They hire only strongbacks and they pay pennies for them. It’s as if the pharaohs have returned.”

River watched as the Doctor parted himself from the child as their mother came up and sent them off on some chore or another.

“You said they found the map room already. When?” she asked Sallah as the Doctor slid over into a seat by her.

“Three days ago,” responded Sallah, “They have not one brain among them. …Except one. He’s very clever. He’s a French archeologist.”

“What’s his name?” asked River.

“They call him Belloq,” Sallah said. River started laughing at this with a slight maniacal edge. She wasn’t even surprised he was with the Nazis, the slimy git, he’d seek a profit anywhere. She repeated his name twice, the syllables rolling hard off her tongue. She felt more than saw the two men’s twin confused stares.

“The Germans have a great advantage over us,” Sallah continued after she settled, “They are near to discovering the Well of Souls.”

The Doctor pulled his medallion out of his jacket pocket, “Well they’ll never be able to find it without this, won’t they?”

“Yes,” River said, snatching the medallion out of his hands, “Do you know anyone who could tell us about these markings, Sallah?”

Sallah regarded the medallion in thought, “Perhaps a man I know could help us… River, there’s something that troubles me.”

“What is it?” she asked, disregarding the Doctor’s glare at her as she tucked the medallion into her own jacket pocket.

“The Ark- if it is there, in Tanis… then it’s something that man was not meant to disturb. Death has always surrounded it. It is not of this Earth.”

\---

“Wait, is that a fez? Where did you get a fez?”

“Yes, I got it a few vendors back. Fezzes are cool.”

“No they’re not! You’re not wearing that! You already look like a college professor as it, with the tweed coat and the bowtie.”

“Bow ties are cool.”

The Doctor shook his bowtie a bit, making River laugh. This was nice, just strolling down the market with him. Sallah had left to find the friend he said could translate the markings on the headpiece, leaving them with nothing to do while they waited, so River dragged the Doctor off to the market. Which turned out to be a mistake given what now adorned his head.

“You’re not keeping the fez.”

“Why not? You’ve got a hat. Why can’t I have a hat? Oh, what’s that?”

River couldn’t help but smile as she watched him run off to a food stand. Everything felt perfect right now. Strolling down a street market with someone she cared about. The Doctor had even stopped rejecting her every touch.

“How come you haven’t found some nice boy to settle down with?” asked the Doctor after a few minutes, “Raise eight or nine kids like your friend Sallah?”

“Who says I haven’t?”

“I do!” the Doctor laughed, “Mum had you figured out a long time ago. Said you were a walking disaster.”

“Ah, she was being generous,” River smiled up at him, “What about you? You don’t have that either. Wasn’t there anyone since…?”

The Doctor smiled back at her, “Yeah a few. Couple girls. Couple guys, too. But they all had one thing in common.”

“What’s that?” asked River.

“They weren’t you, honey.”

River froze in place as the Doctor smirked back at her, her brain trying to process what he just said. A moment later, her brain rejected the idea of thinking and she threw herself into his arms, lips smashing against his as she felt him twirl her around.

“You know, I was thinking I was gonna have to fight for that,” she said after they parted.

“Yeah? I was thinking I was gonna make you,” he responded, grinning. He paused a moment before adding, “Mind you though, that Harkness fellow came pretty damn close.”

“Harkness?” River froze again, “Jack Harkness? The pilot? You slept with Jack?!”

“Yeah, you got a problem with that?”

“I introduced you!”

The Doctor laughed at this and pulled her into his side and they continued along with their stroll. River had never felt happier, with the Doctor’s arm wrapped around her shoulder and her head resting against his. She was definitely going to kill Jack next time she saw him, though.

But a few minutes later, she felt as if something was off.

“Doctor, do you feel like you’re being watched?” she asked.

“What does being watched feel like? Is it that funny tickly feeling on the back of your neck?”

“That’s the chap.”

“Then yes, a bit. Well, quite a big bit.”

They rounded a corner, halting as they met a barrage of rifles pointed right at them, all held by men in Germen military uniform.

“Sweetie, run,” River said. And with that, the pair hightailed it, hand in hand, in the direction they had come.

People around them screamed and scattered as bullets ricocheted around them.

“Why are they shooting at us?!” shouted the Doctor as he ducked under a low hanging sign.

“They know we’re after the Ark,” River answered. She pulled out her own pistol and began firing back at the Nazis, hitting one in the leg and two in their shoulders and possibly killing another before running out of bullets.

“Yes, but why are they shooting at us?!”

“This way!” she shouted as she pulled the Doctor down a narrow alley.

“You sure?” the Doctor shouted back.

“Of course! I’m always sure!”

They halted to a stop in front of an Arab man blocking their way, swinging a sword and shouting something at them in his native tongue. He was clearly in the employment of the Nazis.

River heard German shouting coming from behind them. Given the choice between the guns and the sword, she picked the sword and in a single move, she pulled out her whip and sent it flying out at the Arab, hitting the man’s hands and causing him to lose his grip on his blade.

She and the Doctor pushed past the man and continued running.

They ran through Cairo, twisting and turning down streets and alleys at random, turning and backtracking at times when they ran into more Nazi soldiers or the locals on their side.

After what seemed like ages, they were able to lose their chasers and they stopped in the middle of an open square to catch their breath.

“That’s the second time in a week you’ve almost got me killed, Song,” the Doctor said after a moment.

“Good week then,” River stated. The Doctor smiled at that.

“What do we do now?” he asked.

“Well, we can’t go back to Sallah’s yet. We don’t know if they’ve got a tail on us or not, it would only put his family at risk. I suggest we- _John!_ ” River halted as a man suddenly came up behind the Doctor. The only thing River could identify about the man was that he wore a suit. He was just like the men from the bar in Nepal. Where the hell had he come from?!

The man grabbed the Doctor around his chest and forced a cloth over his mouth until he went slack. He was dragging the Doctor off before River even registered what was happening.

The man was ridiculously fast despite the dead weight he was carrying, reaching a car on the far side of the square before River could even catch up half way. By the time she caught up full, the car was driving off.

River’s mind raced in fear. There was only one place ahead the car could turn on and it still had to drive through crowds of people. Maybe, if she ran around that building by the square, she’d be able to cut it off.

She ran full tilt around, pushing past people as she went, cutting around corners till she found the car again. She managed to come out ahead of it, standing a distance in front of the car as the only thing in the wide street.

She prepared herself to run straight towards the car coming towards her. It would never be able to turn around in time to stop her from reaching them.

There was no way she was going to let them take him from her. Not after she just got him back.

_Whoos-shoom!_

The force of the explosion knocked River over as shrapnel flew around her, only missing her by chance.

River could only stare at the charred remains of the fez that fell directly in front of her as the remains of the car that the Doctor had been taken away on burnt.


	5. Chapter 5

“Belloq!”

“Good afternoon, Dr. Song,” came a smug response from across the bar some German grunt had dragged River to after finding her by the remains of the chard car.

River stalked her way over to where the bastard sat, “I ought to kill you right now.”

“What a very private place for a murder,” Belloq retorted, gesturing around the crowded room.

“Well, these Arabs won’t care if we kill each other,” she spat, “They’re not going to interfere in our business.”

“It was not I who brought the boy into this business. Please, sit down before you fall down. We can at least behave like civilized people,” Belloq said, gesturing again, this time to the chair opposite him. River contemplated for a moment jumping over the table and clawing his eyes out, but instead resigned herself to roughly yanking the chair out sitting heavily in it, intentionally knocking the table and causing the wine in front of Belloq to spill into his lap. She certainly wasn’t going to behave civilly for him. For all she cared Belloq had well as killed the Doctor himself.

“How odd it should end this way for us, after so many stimulating encounters” Belloq added, wiping up the spilt wine as if it were a small mistake, “I almost regret it. Where will I find a new adversary, so close to my level?”

“Try the local sewer,” River gritted out.

Belloq smiled as if at a joke River missed, “You and I are very much alike. Archeology is our religion, yet we have both fallen from the pure faith. Our methods have not differed as much as you pretend. I am a shadowy reflection of you. And it would only take a nudge to make you like me… to push you out of the light. You know it’s true.”

River glared darkly on, not trusting herself to speak. This idiot was playing a dangerous game right now. Under any other circumstance, she’d have argued against this accusation, or made some witty remark, and she could see from his face that that’s what he expected her to do. But now, she would more than happily fling herself out of the so called light just to bring him down. This man just took away someone she loved. She wanted him to pay for that.

Quite unexpectedly, Belloq took a pocket watch out, “Look at this, it’s worthless. Ten dollars at a street vendor. But I take it, I bury in the sand for a thousand years, it becomes priceless- like the Ark. Men will kill for it. People like you and me.”

“What about your boss, Der Fuhrer?” asked River hotly, “I thought he was waiting to take possession?”

“All in good time. When I’m finished with it,” Belloq said, “Song, do you realize what the Ark is? It’s a transmitter. It’s a radio for speaking to God. And it’s within my reach!”

River didn’t care about the damn Ark anymore. She just wanted the man in front of her to shut up. She wanted him and the Nazis and Hitler himself to feel her pain right now.

“You want to talk to God?” she sneered, “Let’s go see him together. I’ve got nothing better…”

She lunged over the table at him, reaching her hands out around the man’s neck.

The sound of multiple guns cocking stopped her from closing her hands around him. Every last man in the bar had a gun of some description pointed at her.

If the bastard thought that would stop her… She didn’t care about living anymore and she could easily ensure that one of those men hit him before her. If she just-

“Auntie River!” came voices coming from the door near where they were as several children came pouring through, surrounding her and pulling her back out to further cries of, “Come back home.”

She heard Belloq and some other men laughing behind her and Belloq shouted after her, “Next time, River Song, it will take more than children to save you!”

They pulled River outside where Sallah waited by a truck.

“I thought I would find you in there,” he said, “Better than United States Marines, eh?”

“John’s dead,” River said, voice cracking as the truth settled in.

“Yes, I know,” responded Sallah. And with that, River broke, tears starting to flow down her face as the man pulled her into a hug for comfort.

\---

“Where did Belloq get a copy of the headpiece? There were no pictures, no duplicates of it anywhere,” River said, bemused by Sallah’s latest news as they sat with an older man translating the writing on the medallion River had taken from the Doctor earlier that day.

“I tell you only what I saw, with my own eyes,” explained Sallah, “A headpiece like that one. Except ‘round the edges, which were rougher. In the center the Frenchman had embedded a crystal and surrounding the crystal, on one side, there were raised markings. Just like this one.”

“And they made the calculations in the map room?” asked River.

“This morning,” Sallah answered, “Belloq and the boss woman, Kovarian, when they came out of the map room, they gave us a new spot in which to dig- out away from the camp.”

River sat pondering a moment on this, distracting her mind from… other things.

The old man waved them over.

“What does it say?” River asked the man.

“This is a warning, not to disturb the Ark of the Covenant,” he said, pointing to the inscription across the top of the headpiece.

“What about the height of the staff, though? Did Belloq get it off here?” asked River.

The man motioned to the inscription below the crystal, “Yes, it is here. This means six kadam high.”

“About seventy-two inches,” Sallah explained.

“Wait,” the man said, flipping the headpiece over, “And take _back_ one kadam to honor the Hebrew God whose Ark it is.”

“You said their headpiece only had markings on one side. Are you sure?” River asked Sallah, who nodded. River smiled, “Belloq’s staff is too long.”

“They’re digging in the wrong place,” both she and Sallah said together.


	6. Chapter 6

“I told you not to be premature in your communique to Berlin,” Belloq all but shouted at the woman following at his heel, “Archeology is not an exact science. It does not deal in time schedules.”

He glanced back at the woman, a disturbing person, dressed all in black and with a strange metal eyepiece imposed over one eye, like an eyepatch but without anything appearing to hold it in place. The woman was only called Madam Kovarian. She was in charge of this excursion, though how she got to be Belloq couldn’t figure; she didn’t seem German to him.

She had a face that could give children nightmares. In fact, Belloq was certain she probably had.

But as strange as she was, the men who followed her… they weren’t like the Nazi soldiers. Not in the least. They seems to be specially hers. He still couldn’t figure out how many there were; they always appeared out of nowhere. And he could never quite remember their faces.

What had Kovarian called them? The Silence?

“The Fuhrer I not a patient man,” Kovarian said, “He demands constant reports! And he expects progress! You lead me to believe-”

“Nothing!” Belloq shouted, “I made no promises! I only said it was very favorable! Besides, with the information you received, my calculations were correct.”

A sinister smile crept onto the woman’s face, “That may well be, Belloq, but I suggest you find a way to hasten the process. After all, I may be willing to overlook certain… aspects of your person, but if any of these soldiers figured out more about you, well, I doubt they’d be so kind.”

With that, she turned around and went walking back to her tent. Belloq sent one last glare at her before stalking off in the other direction.

\---

The desert bustled with activity as workers and soldiers rushed off this way and that. River had never seen a busier dig sight.

“They’re not kidding, are they?” she commented, “What time does the sun hit the map room?”

“At about nine in the morning,” answered Sallah.

“Not much time then. Where are they digging for the Well?”

“On that way,” Sallah pointed down at a clearing that the lower part of the camp that scurried with people. He shifted his arm to point at a slope clear across the camp from the major activity and added, “But the map room’s over there.”

“Let’s go. Come on.” They crossed over the hot sands to the slope Sallah had pointed to.

River sweltered under all the extra layers she wore under her long robes to disguise herself. It wouldn’t do them well if someone saw certain physical characteristics of hers. That she had breasts wouldn’t help them either.

They reached the mound that marked out the map room. At one side of it was an opening that River tossed the staff she carried into as discreetly as she could. A moment later, Sallah had lowered a rope into it and she climbed down, following her stick.

River took a moment dangling about ten feet up to gaze down at the map below; a perfect to-scale model of the city of Tanis as it was over two millennia ago; unruined by age and heat, and dazzling in the morning sun.

She finished her descent, picking the measured staff back up after hitting the floor. In front of the miniature city was a series of holes surrounded by markings of writing. She knelt down and brushed sand from around the markings then pulled a small blue diary out from under her robes, consulting it against the markings on the ground.

She closed the diary and tucked it back into her robes, turning her attention to the small holes. They were all filled with sand except one; the one Belloq used for his makeshift Staff of Ra. But River drew back to one a couple rows behind and to the left of that one, her own calculations proving Belloq’s to be, unsurprisingly, wrong. She dug the sand out of her chosen spot with her hand and stood back up.

Looking back up at the ray of sunlight shining through the entrance directly onto the tiny city, River pulled out the medallion and stuck it onto one end of the staff, inserting the other end into its slot on the ground.

Sunlight shone red through the crystal as the light moved slowly yet steadily across the model. It passed over one building of which was surrounded by bits of string cutting it off from the rest of the model, Belloq’s dig site.

An intense, direct beam of golden light passed through the crystal as the sun hit directly behind the headpiece, highlighting a building a building clear across the map from what Belloq had marked out. River smiled as the light shifted back out, dying back down to a dull red. She lowered the staff, pulled her diary and a pen back out and scribbled away in it.

She turned back to leave only to find the rope was gone.

“Sallah,” she shouted in a stage whisper, “Sallah!”

Without warning, a large amount of cloth dropped down on her head. She fumbled out from under the makeshift rope dangling from the skylight overhead, taking a moment to examine its end, a Nazi flag, before climbing up it.

“Sorry,” Sallah said as River popped out,

“They took the rope.” “Nevermind that. I know where the Ark is. Come on,” River said before moving across to the camp below.

\---

As they passed a table in the camp, they were met with German shouting, several voices demanding something about water. As Sallah went over to them with words of appeasement, River ducked backwards into a nearby tent to hide.

A startled sound came from behind her and she spun around, hoping she didn’t just walk in on more soldiers. Or worse, Belloq.

Her eyes widened in shock at the sight of the figure struggling against the bonds tying him to the center pole of the tent: the Doctor, alive, with a gag around his mouth to match the ropes.

River slid down to him, embracing him despite his struggling. She pulled back seeing the panic on his face as he desperately tried to shuffle away from her and only then did she remember that she wore covering on her face. His face flushed with relief as she pulled it off.

“I thought you were dead,” she cried as she removed the gag from his mouth, “They must have switched you out to another car.”

The Doctor’s mouth opened to respond, but River cut him off as she pulled him against her, bringing her lips to his. She held the kiss only a few seconds, though, before moving around behind him to fumble with the ties wrapped and knotted around his hands, securing him to the pole.

“Are you hurt?” she asked him.

He shook his head, “No. You have to get me out of here quick. They’ll come back any minute! They keep asking about you; what you know.”

The sound of a vehicle came from just outside the tent. River halted at this, realization dawning on her.

“What’s wrong?” the Doctor exclaimed, “Get me loose!”

“I know where the Ark is, John,” she said.

“The Ark’s here?” the Doctor asked. River nodded and he continued, “Well, I’m coming with you, Song. Get me out of here!”

He started struggling against his bonds anew, trying to get River to go back to untying them.

River grabbed his arms to still him, “Doctor, if I take you out of here now, they’ll start combing the place for us.”

The Doctor stopped struggling at this and looked her in the eyes. She could see a glint of fear in his eyes before he slunk down in surrender.

“Fine,” he huffed, “But don’t expect me to just sit here and wait for you to save me. If I can get out myself, I will.”

River chuckled at this, “I suggest trying to play for time instead. Trick them into untying you themselves. Ask questions. You might learn something from them. I’ll be back for you later.”

She replaced the gag over his mouth before kissing him on the forehead. A

s she reached the mouth of the tent, she turned back to look at him a last time, seeing his final glare at her.

She felt the last of the coldness that had been in her since yesterday dissipate. He was alive. And if they could both get out of this unscathed, she was never going to let anyone take him from her again.


	7. Chapter 7

A storm rolled overhead.

 _Odd_ , River thought, _you don’t get many storms in Egypt_.

River’s team of diggers, pulled straight out of the ranks of diggers of the Nazis, had worked all day, digging up tons of sand in hopes of finding some sort opening to an antechamber underneath.

River stood by the flag pole they had set up with the Germans’ flag flying on it in hopes that it would trick the Nazis into thinking this was one of their sites. It thus far worked, no one had even come up to investigate.

Everything was going perfectly. The Ark was close at hand and away from the Nazis. The Doctor was safe, relatively speaking. She just needed to get the Ark and find the Doctor again and get them both safely back to England. What could go wrong?

The men digging started yelling, which could only mean they had found an entrance to the Ark’s tomb. Sallah led the men in lifting the stone slab they had unearthed with crowbars.

The slab flipped over and hit the ground with a resounding bang, allowing access to the room below. River looked down into it. There was something not right about the ground.

“River… why does the floor move?” asked Sallah beside her.

River took one of the fire lit torches and dropped it down into the pit.

“Snakes,” River muttered, looking down at the thousands of thin, wriggling streaks hissing below. She laid by the edge of the pit in anguish, “Why did it have to be snakes?”

“Asps,” Sallah specified, glancing at River, “Very dangerous. You go first.”

\---

Movement startled the Doctor awake. He felt the ropes around his hands loosening. His first thought was that River had come back for him, but a glance in the mirror across from him told him that was not the case.

The Doctor made no attempt to register who it was that had untied him before bolting off, crawling on hands and knees to the flap that served as a doorway. Only upon reaching there, he found a pair of legs blocking his way. And attached to the legs towering above, a soldier guarding the tent.

“If you’re trying to escape on foot, the desert is three weeks in every direction,” came a voice from behind the Doctor, “So please, eat something.”

“You must be that Belloq fella I’ve heard so much about,” the Doctor said with a sarcastic tinge, moving over to the food the man had gestured to. He certainly had the accent for a French man.

“Please, call me Emile. I must apologize for their treatment of you.”

“Yeah?” the Doctor spoke with a mouth full of food, “Whose idea was it? No food. No water. What kind of people are these friends of yours?”

“At this particular time and place, and to my work, they are necessary evils. They are not my friends” replied Belloq as he pulled a large flat box out and placed it in front of the Doctor, “However, with the right connections, even in this part of the world, we are not entirely uncivilized.”

The Doctor opened the box and pulled out a silk shirt and slacks.

“I thought you would like a fresh change of clothes, after the damage that has been inflicted to your current wear by my… current associates. I’d very much like to see you in them.”

“I bet you would,” the Doctor laughed, “All right then.”

He grabbed up the clothes and moved over to a corner of the tent and began stripping. He kept Belloq within eye sight. The man had his back turned to him in apparent respect to his privacy, but the Doctor could see in the corner of his eye the mirror near Belloq that the man was using to watch the Doctor undress. The man clearly didn’t know how to be subtle. And he went to work for the _Nazis!_ The Doctor had to appreciate the man’s gall. The bravery of an idiot was bravery nonetheless.

“You don’t have much time,” Belloq told him, “Soon they will come to harm you and I will not be able to stop them. Unless you are able to give me something to placate them. Some, ah, piece of information. Which I could use to protect you from them.”

The Doctor smiled inwardly. River had said to play his captures, but he didn’t expect it to be so easy. Belloq was already clearly attracted to him and the Doctor already knew from experience, both as something he has done and has been done towards him, that attraction always made it all the more easy to wrap a person around your finger. It was one of the best tools of manipulation of them all.

And if this man wanted to see the Doctor as his damsel in distress, well, who was the Doctor to argue with his fantasies.

So the Doctor pulled out one of his greatest skill sets, the one he played closest to his chest as to never let anyone learn the full scope of it: lying.

“I’ve already told you everything I know,” he bluffed, “I’ve got no loyalty to Song. She’s brought me nothing but trouble.”

He pulled his tweed coat back on over the new shirt, stuffing his bowtie into the pocket of it to be put back on later, when he no longer had to make use of this man’s expected appearance. He stepped out in front of Belloq, who turned around to look at him, and gave him a twirl.

He sat down at the table opposite Belloq and placed his old clothes on top a knife that sat there.

He let his eyes deliberately shift to the guard at the tent’s entrance.

“Oh, I don’t think we’ll need a chaperone,” he told Belloq, who waved the man away.

Belloq pulled up a bottle and pour some of the liquor into two glasses. He handed one to the Doctor who kept his held out for a moment, prompting Belloq into a toast. He then downed the drink in one shot, looking back at Belloq in challenge. He would treat this ordeal like one of his drinking competitions. Just with a touch more… flirting.

Barely twenty minutes and not even a full bottle later, the Doctor had Belloq raging drunk. The light weight.

The Doctor now sat directly by the man, leaning into him, pretending to be as drunk as him.

“What is this stuff, Emile?” he asked.

“I grew up with this,” Belloq said laughing, “It’s my family label.”

The Doctor grabbed the bottle out of Belloq’s hand to pour another cup, deliberately missing and pouring it out on the floor so as to further appear drunk. It was rubbish anyway.

He watched the drunk loon cackle his head off at this as he slowly reached under his old clothes for the knife. When he had it in hand, he leapt back and pointed the sharp end at Belloq, shaking off all pretense of intoxication and infatuation.

Belloq took one look at the knife and continued on with his giggle fit.

“Well, I have to be going now, Belloq,” the Doctor said, backing away from the man and heading towards the exit, “I’d like you Belloq, very much. Perhaps we’ll meet someday, under better circumstances.”

And with that he turned to flee the tent.

Only to be pushed back in by one of the strange men he learned earlier were called the Silence. The man was followed in by the Eye-patch woman who had destroyed his bar.

“You appear to be leaving,” the woman said. She raised a hand dramatically for him to see. Seared into the flesh of it, a perfect imprint of his medallion. “Now. What should we talk about?”

\---

River stood outside the antechamber, dead nervous.

They had spent ages setting fires and spouting gases in to clear the snakes away a form a path. Well, mostly Sallah and the other diggers did; River wouldn’t go near them.

But now that she was here she had her doubts.

What if she was wrong in her calculations? What if someone else centuries back had already found it and just never left a record?

 _Well, there’s only one way to find out_ , she thought as she pushed open the antechamber door.

The room shone around it as if it were its own light source. The twin gold angels on top had a certain austerity to them River just couldn’t explain. Something about it seemed almost alive.

River stood staring at it for a moment, dumbfounded by its sheer opulence. Almost not believing what it was despite having been looking specifically for it.

The Ark of the Covenant.


	8. Chapter 8

The Doctor stood in the blazing morning sun, watching as the Ark was pulled up into daylight.

All resistance above ground had been quelled. Sallah had to be actively held back by two soldiers. The only person who remained in the Well was River, unaware of the trap above as she guided the Ark up into the hands of her enemies.

And it was all the Doctor’s fault.

He just stood there rubbing his arms. They and his back still stinging from Kovarian’s tortures from throughout the night. He held out for a while, but eventually the pain proved to be too much and he told them about the inscriptions on the other side of the medallion and that River was on the site and knew where the Ark truly was. It didn’t take them long to find her after that. They only had to look for the one unauthorized dig site.

The Doctor had taken to tagging beside Belloq, hoping to continue playing off of the man’s attraction to him and possibly use Belloq’s resulting protection to somehow salvage something from this mess.

An indistinct shouting came from down in the Well a few moments after the Ark was finished being lifted out. River shouting out wondering why no one had dropped her a rope, most likely.

Belloq sauntered over to the skylight and bent to look down at River, “Why, Dr. Song, whatever are you doing in such a nasty place?”

The Doctor heard River let off a string of profanity before shouting up, “Why don’t you come on down! I’ll show you!”

“Thank you my friend, but we are all very comfortable up here,” Belloq replied. He looked up a moment at the people around him, eyes lingering longer on the Doctor, “That’s right isn’t it. Yes, we are very comfortable up here. So once again, Song, what was briefly yours is now mine. What a fitting end to your life’s pursuits. You are about to become a permanent addition to this archeological find. Who knows, maybe in a thousand years’ time even you will be worth something.”

The Doctor missed River’s response as Kovarian moved over the skylight to talk down on River, both literally and metaphorically. He tried to move away, not wanting to be anywhere near that woman after what she did to him, but he was grabbed from behind by a couple of her Silence and pulled forth.

Despite the circumstance he thought for a moment about what he had heard about these men; rumors mostly from the soldiers guarding him yesterday. Speculation that these men were genetic experiments or something. Nazi scientists’ attempts to make people who could edit themselves out of other people’s memories. The perfect spies.

The Doctor tried to shake himself out of their steel vice grips. He wasn’t certain about these men being failed experiments, but whatever they were, they weren’t human. If indeed they ever were.

“I’m afraid we must be going now, Dr. Song,” Kovarian told River, “Our prize is awaited in Berlin. But we do not want to leave you down in that awful place all alone.”

The Silence shoved the Doctor down into the pit. Everything felt surprisingly calm for those few seconds of free fall. There was a quite nagging in the back of his worrying that he was going to go splat against the floor below, but for the most part, the sensation of near weightlessness was… nice. Time felt slower for a moment and he felt blissfully disconnected from everything. He felt for a moment that he could just be.

Until he crashed into the side of one of the statues holding the roof of the room up like pillars.

His arms wrapped instinctively around what he crashed into, what looked like a large tooth, as he began slipping down again. His mind went into panic mode as his legs dangled in the air. A small part of his brain registered shouting from below him, but he couldn’t fully register who said it, nonetheless what was being said.

A cracking sound from beside him sent the Doctor into further panic as the tooth he clung onto started pulling down at his weight. His mind blanked as the stone tooth lurched against him.

The next thing he knew, the tooth laid splintered on the floor in front of him. He felt arms wrapped around him holding him up accompanied by soft whisperings of assurance in his ear. He also heard a crazed, maniacal laugh coming from somewhere nearby. He wished it would stop.

As the realization that he was okay kicked in, his mind started to calm down and he realized the cackling had been coming from him.

The world slowly seeped back in. The sound of an argument coming down from above was one of the first things the Doctor could fully recognize.

He looked up I time to see Belloq’s figure lean over the skylight above to shout down to him, “I’m sorry. It was not to be, monsieur.”

The first coherent thought since being pushed formed in the Doctor’s mind and he shouted it up to Belloq at the top of his lungs, “You bastards, I’ll get you for this!”

“River Song, adieu,” he heard Belloq say. The sound of scraping stone followed and the sunlight from above was cut off, along with the rest of the world.

Everything remained still for a moment as the Doctor took in what was happening. Only two things truly registered: that they were trapped down here and that River’s arms were still wrapped around him.

“We’re gonna die,” the Doctor muttered, all the events of the last forty-eight hours, the exhaustion, the starving, the torture, crashing down on him. River released him and he collapsed into a pile on the floor. He let off another crazed laugh, “We’re gonna die down here!”

A lit torch was thrust in his face.

“Here, wave this at anything that slithers,” River said behind him.

“What?” the Doctor looked around and saw the floor crawling with snakes past the quickly dying fires that served as a barrier between them and River and him, “Oh. You know, with the day I’m having, I didn’t even notice.”

River and he continued on with a conversation as he poked the torch at any nearby snake and River moved around the room doing goodness only knew, though he didn’t really know what either River or he was saying. Something about the shirt Belloq had given him that he still wore and that the creep fancied him, and possibly something about what Kovarian had done to him in the night. That he could maintain a coherent conversation without even being conscious of it impressed even him.

He heard River move further away from him. “Wait, where are you going?” he asked.

“Through this wall,” he heard River reply, “Just get ready to run, whatever happens to me.”

“Right,” the Doctor muttered, not fully taking in what she said, “Big day for fans of walls.”

There was a lot of sound of crunching stone and the cracking of that whip of River’s. This was soon followed by a resounding crash which made the Doctor jump. He spun around and discovered that one of the pillar statues was now lying through the wall that had been behind him.

River yanked the dazed Doctor’s hand and pulled him along and through the hole created by the fallen statue and down a dark tunnel, occasionally casting concerned glances back at him.

They eventually hit a dead end. But seeping out from between the edges of the blocks in the wall in front of them was sunlight, glorious sunlight. River promptly pushed these block away, forming a hole large enough for them to climb through.

They stepped out into the blinding sun, amplified by the bright desert sand, back into the middle of the expansive dig site.

River gripped the Doctor’s hand encouragingly, “Come on. We still have to get the Ark and find Sallah, if we can.”

She pulled the Doctor around the corner of the tomb they had just broken out of.

And walked straight into a small group of German soldiers.

“What are you doing here?” the lead Officer demanded conveniently in English.

River released the Doctor’s hand, stepping forward with a grin on her face and answered, “Well, I was on my way to this gay Gypsy Bar-Mitzvah for the disabled, when I thought gosh, the Third Reich's a bit rubbish. I think I'll kill the Fuhrer. Who's with me?”

The soldiers all raised their guns at them.


	9. Chapter 9

“Everything at last has been arranged,” Sallah told River as she walked towards the jolly man.

“And the Ark?” she asked.

“Is on the ship. Nothing is lacking now that you are here,” he responded before taking a moment to look River and the Doctor up and down, “Or what is left of you.”

River grinned and leaned further into the Doctor, whom had his arm wrapped around her. It was true, they both looked terribly bedraggled. River was covered in skid marks and road burns from being dragged behind that one truck clinging to nothing but her whip and most of her skin, especially around her face and knuckles were bruised from both punching and being punched.

The Doctor looked a bit better for wear. The silk shirt and trousers he had gotten from Belloq were all but shredded, though somehow his tweed coat had made it through completely unscathed, and he had somehow found the time to put his bowtie back on. Dark red scars and blisters from where Kovarian had hurt him could be seen through the cuts on his shirt, but otherwise he was physically fine. And he looked a lot better now that some life had seeped back into his bones.

River thought back on the hectic events from a few hours before that had put them into this state. Being trapped in the Well of Souls and breaking out, accidentally blowing up a plane, chasing down a good ten cars by her lonesome to get the Ark back and crashing nearly all of them. And those soldiers they met leaving the temple were a real push over.

They had found Sallah again easily after blowing up the plane, which was good because the explosion had wiped out the last of the Doctor’s resolve. So River left the shell shocked man in Sallah’s care before stealing a motorbike and going after the Ark.

It was going to be one of those ‘you wouldn’t believe me if I told you’ stories when they got back home.

And now here they were, in the middle of the night by a boat ready to take the two of them back to England.

“Mister Katanga?” Sallah shouted and the captain of the ship, an African man, came over to him, “Mister Katanga, these are my friends. They are my family. I would gather it as a personal insult if they are not treated well.”

“My cabin is theirs,” the man assured Sallah before turning to River, “Miss Song! I’ve heard a lot about you. Your appearance is exactly the way I imagined.”

Sallah and Katanga both roared laughing at this. River might have laughed a bit herself except she suddenly got swept up into a very, very tight hug by Sallah. She felt a third arm go around her as the Doctor leached onto them in attempt to join the hug.

“Look after each other,” Sallah said after the three parted, “I am missing you already.”

“See you around, Sallah,” River told him.

And with that, River slung her arm back around her Doctor’s shoulder and together they walked up the gangplank as Sallah sang a shanty behind them.

\---

“Hey,” River heard the Doctor say as he entered their cabin on the rocking ship.

“Hey,” she responded, stiffly sitting up in the bed she laid in. Why did the body have to always get sore only after you stopped moving after a rough day?

“I got this,” the Doctor said, holding up a silk nightdress, “From Katanga. I’ve got a feeling you’re not the first woman to travel with these pirates.”

“Aw, he gave you a dress to wear. That’s sweet. Everybody’s giving you free clothes these days,” teased River.

The Doctor snorted, “I’ll have you know, I look great in a dress.”

“Know this from experience, do you?”

“Yes actually,” he said. He held the dress against him as if trying it on, swaying it around a bit, making River laugh, “I should tell you about that time I had to disguise myself as a woman to save Tash from becoming a part of a harem to some Arabic lord or whatever. Ha, no, I think Katanga intended this to be for you. I see you could certainly use it right now.”

He spoke that last part addressing to River’s bare chest. Though she could think of many better ways for him to address it.

“Oh, I’m very comfortable the way I am, thank you,” River said.

The Doctor grinned at this, flinging the dress dramatically over his shoulder.

“Do I have to come over there?” he asked.

“Yes.”

The Doctor sauntered over to the bed and sat down beside her, taking his jacket and bowtie off along the way and leaving them in a nearby chair. River shifted on the bed so that she sat cross legged on one side of it and the Doctor moved to mirror here.

“How you holding up?” she asked as she unbuttoned the fresh shirt he wore, revealing the bandages he wrapped around his arms and torso; a heavy reminder of the terror this adventure had brought him. She’d kill Kovarian if given the chance.

“I dunno. Everything hurts. And this morning is one big panicked blur. ‘Okay’ is relative,” he answered, “How ‘bout you? You look like you were dragged behind a truck.”

“I was,” she said, chucking his shirt to the side.

“What?! Just how out of things was I?!”

“You weren’t with me for that. I left with Sallah by then.”

“Oh.”

River brought a hand up to his cheek. God, she really had missed him these past ten years. He’d grown up so much since then. He wasn’t the gangly kid who’d follow her like a lost puppy wherever she went. He was a lot more experience now and a lot better at lying, though he always had a gift for it. But that was life, wasn’t it? Experience made liars of us all.

His skin was a lot thicker now, that was for sure. And he was much better built.

“You’re not the woman I knew ten years ago,” the Doctor said as if he read her mind.

“It’s not the years, Sweetie, it’s the mileage,” she replied, summing up her own line of thought as well as his.

The Doctor gazed deeply into her eyes for a moment before hesitantly asking, “River, can I trust you?”

“If you like,” she answered, “but where’s the fun in that?”

She laughed, pulling him in for a kiss. She felt his arms move around her as he shifted forward, shifting her back as he laid them down. He never broke the kiss as he pressed down into her, his hands roaming further down her bare body.

Oh god, had she really missed this.

\---

_Moving. So long since we have been moved._

_Hidden so long in the sand._

_But dark. Dark in the crate they placed us in. With its evil symbol._

_Stolen symbol._

_Stolen from another faith, like they try to steal us. Until the lion woman saved us and brings us out to sea with her physician man._

_And their symbol. A symbol of peace before. Used now to kill millions._

_Millions of our chosen people in droves. And millions of others._

_We burn it._

_We will burn them._

\---

Sun shone brightly in from the wide windows of the cabin as the Doctor woke. He looked up blurrily to see River across the room, fully dressed, fitting her gun holster over her hip.

“What is it?” he asked groggily, pushing himself up off the bed.

“The engines have stopped. I’m gonna go and check,” came the reply and the Doctor flopped back down. He saw no reason to get up yet himself.

He felt a peck on his left temple as River bent down to kiss him before leaving.

He stretched out across the bed, smiling in a moment of content. This time yesterday may have been a hectic, fearful mess and he was still in a fair bit of pain from most of it, but last night with River, god, he hadn’t felt that good in years. Hell, he hadn’t felt like that since the last time he slept with her a decade ago.

And today promised to be just as amazing. Surely the stop would prove to be nothing and River would come straight back here, maybe with breakfast. He probably wouldn’t have to be bothered getting clothes back on at all today. It wasn’t like there was much to do on a ship like this anyway.

He sat up and glanced out the window over the bed.

And looked right at the German U-boat boarding them.

“Shite,” he said, leaping out of bed and grabbing his clothes. He had no desire to be caught by the Nazis in this state. Oh god, he hoped this was just a coincident.

He had to find River.

He flung the door of the cabin open and skid out it. Right into the arms of soldier about to force themselves in. They took no time in grapping him and dragging him off kicking and screaming to the top deck.

Okay, so raincheck on the ‘amazing’.

The top deck was bustling with activity. The Doctor saw the crate holding the Ark fly above head as a complex pulley moved over from the ship to the Nazis sub. Funny, he didn’t remember the side being blackened out last night.

Over in one of the air scoop ventilators by the bridge, he saw a flash of gold as the sun reflected off those familiar curls. It was River hidden in it, ducking down as soldiers came near and coming back up as they left so she could see the action below her. They locked eyes for a moment, but he quickly looked away as so not to give away her position.

But on the deck beside it, watching the crate above, were Belloq and Madam Kovarian.

The Doctor felt a wave of anger wash over him at the site of Kovarian, quite unexpectedly. And in a moment of strength, he shook off the soldiers holding him back and lunged at the woman, determined to wipe that smug expression off her face. He came short though as Katanga came up behind him pulling him back from taking his vengeance out on the woman.

“Why Mr. Lem, we meet again,” Kovarian said, looking over at him, “Oh, why couldn’t you just die?”

“Did me best dear, I showed up,” the Doctor spat, “Didn’t bring your freaky friends along with this time, did you?”

“The Silence are…” Kovarian hesitated before continuing, “Involved in another matter at the moment.”

The Doctor stared at the woman for a moment, brain going into overdrive till the pieces slotted together. He laughed “You don’t know, do you? And here I thought they worked for you. But it’s the other way around, isn’t it. You’re on their leash. Does your precious Fuhrer know about this? Or is he just another stepping stone in their own plans?”

“Enough!” snarled Kovarian, “Where is Dr. Song?!”

“Song is dead,” came a voice from behind the Doctor, Katanga, “I killed her. She was of no use to us. This boy, however, has certain value where we’re heading.”

“Boy?!” exclaimed the Doctor. He could see what the man was doing, but he could’ve done without the cutback.

“He will bring a very good price,” Katanga continued, ignoring him, “That cargo you’ve taken, if it is your goal, go in piece with it. But leave us the boy, it will reduce our losses on this trip.”

“Savage,” Kovarian shouted, gripping the Doctor’s arm and pulling him from the pirates reach, “You are not in the position to ask for anything. We will take what we wish. And then decide whether or not to blow your ship out of the water!”

“The boy goes with me,” Belloq spoke with his first contribution in the conversation, “It will be part of my compensation. If he fails to please me, you can do what you like with him. I will waste no more time with him.”

The French man pulled the Doctor away from Kovarian and towards the sub.

The Doctor’s head spun as he tried to figure out just where there he lost all his agency and became nothing more than an object to these people. He took one last quick look at River in her hidey-hole. She watched after him, face set in promise to rescue him.

He trusted her. She’d find a way to come after these bastards and save him. He knew she would.


	10. Chapter 10

Who had a secret base on a remote island?

River flopped down behind a large tarp covering some large containers to hide. The place was crawling with Nazi soldiers. Because of course they had a freaking secret base on a freaking remote island.

She peaked over the tarp back at the submarine she had stowed away on into this place. There was the Doctor being led away from the sub by armed soldiers.

Not that she’d be much help from here. She had no plan, no back up, no weapons worth a damn. And to add insult to injury, she was soaking wet.

There hadn’t exactly been a chance to plan anything more elaborate what with having to spend the last few hours cooped up in the cramp, inescapable tube filled with people who would no doubt shoot her on sight if they found her. Though she certainly found out some things on that boat; like what Belloq had dragged off John to do to him with. The man always talked about how he was so civilized, but apparently that didn’t stop him from engaging in one of the most uncivilized practices of them all.

Oh, this had certainly been a hellish week for the Doctor, and she knew she was mostly to blame. Everything it seemed she did with him only ever hurt him more and more. That’s why she left him ten years ago.

That’s why she couldn’t leave him now.

That didn’t change the fact that she had no means to save him. The soldiers would grab her or shoot her the moment she revealed herself.

She shifted under the tarp and dug around the crates to see if there would be anything useful in them, but no dice. It was just a lot of medical supplies, ace bandages mostly, for arm wounds and such. What she really needed really needed was some sort of big weapon, or a disguise, or both.

Wait, a disguise. The ace bandages.

She grabbed a few rolls from the crates and slunk off, shifting down the shadows in the back row between the wall and the line of supplies until she came across a soldier in a secluded spot with his back to her. The best part being he was about her size.

She clobbered the man from behind and dragged him back into the shadows. She began stripping his clothes off then pulled off her own wet ones. She wound the ace bandages around her chest, flattening her chest, then pulled the soldiers clothes over it.

“The alter has been prepared in accordance with your radio instructions, sir,” came the voice of a soldier from the other side of the crate she was at. She froze.

“Good. Take the Ark there immediately.” Belloq.

“I am very uncomfortable with the thought of this… Jewish ritual,” came a third voice, Kovarian, “Are you sure it’s necessary?”

Anger surged through River. These were the two people who had just spent a good part of the last two days abusing her Doctor. And they were just in reach. She had the element of surprise, she could easily jump them from here. Oh how satisfying it would be to wring their necks.

“Let me ask you this,” Belloq’s voice came, interrupting River’s thoughts of murdering him, “Would you be more comfortable opening the Ark in Berlin, for your Fuhrer? Finding out only then if the sacred piece of the Covenant are inside? Knowing only then whether you have accomplished your mission and obtained the One True Ark?”

\---

It had been only half an hour and River already decided she despised being a soldier. It wasn’t so much the orders, which were irritating, or the bazooka they made her carry, it was heavy but it would certainly come in handy, though why _they_ needed a bazooka… No, it was the marching. The terrible, terrible marching. She was going to have blisters on her feet for a month. And the shoes didn’t help, because they clearly weren’t designed for this sort of activity.

She marched at the end of the line going through a small ravine. At the front she could the Doctor trudging alongside Belloq, Kovarian, what looked like only one of the Silence, and about a dozen men carrying either weapons or camera equipment.

A fool would say the Doctor’s trudging came from exhaustion; he was certainly putting out that air and the people surrounding him were certainly fools. But River knew him better and she could see what he was doing for what it really was. He was deliberately moving slow, holding the group back either as a way to take a bit of vengeance out on them and show he still had control, if only a little, or as means to give her as much a chance as possible to come swooping in and save him. Probably both.

It was about time she delivered on that.

She ducked back around a large crate that had been placed alongside the path and climbed up the rocky slope behind it, heaving the bazooka up ahead of her as she went. She got up on the high ground, sprinting forward a bit to catch up, and took off the cap holding up her hair, letting the curls tumble back around her shoulders.

“Hello!” River shouted down below, hefting the bazooka to point straight at the Ark.

Heads turned in sequence to look up at her. Below, the Doctor grinned up at her as Belloq stood sputtering curses at seeing her alive and well.

She could’ve taken a moment to enjoy the drama of her scene, perhaps some playful banter against Belloq and a little flirting with the Doctor, but she was far too past that with her anger.

“I’m gonna blow up the Ark, Emile,” she warned. The Doctor started to run off only to be grabbed by two soldiers.

“Your persistence surprises even me,” shouted Belloq, “You’re gonna give mercenaries a bad name.”

“Dr. Song, surely you don’t think you can escape this island,” said Kovarian beside him.

“That depends on how reasonable we’re all willing to be,” River yelled, “I just want the Doctor.”

Kovarian glanced over at Belloq, whom River could see from here shake his head no.

“And if we refuse?” the witch shouted up.

“Then your Fuhrer has no prize!”

“Okay, stand back. All of you stand back. Get back” Belloq said, ushering the soldiers away from the Ark. He looked up at River and shouted, “Okay Song, you win! Blow it up! Yes, blow it up! Blow it back to God! All your life has been spent in pursuit of archeological relics. Inside the Ark are treasures beyond your wildest aspirations. You want to see it opened as well as I. River, we are simply passing through history. This… this is history.”

He gestured towards the Ark knowingly,

“Do as you will.”

River lowered her weapon, cursing the man.

\---

He won. Belloq could feel it. He beat River Song and would get to view the greatest archeological find himself. It was all his for the taking. His whole life had been waiting for this.

He stood in front of the Ark at the alter that had been prepared for the occasion, facing the crowd of soldiers holding up filming equipment, prepared to take the whole ceremony down on record.

Dr. Song and the Lem boy had been tied to a light pole a fair distance away from the staged area. They couldn’t be risked to have them come and try to stop this moment of history from happening.

Kovarian stood beside him, ready to see if they had truly found the Ark to take back to Hitler.

 _If indeed that’s ever where her allegiances laid_ , thought Belloq, remembering what the Lem boy had said about the Silence holding her leash.

There was indeed one of them standing just off to the side of the alter.

But that was of no matter right now. The film had already started rolling. It was time to start.

He began chanting ancient Hebrew scripture. Mostly just stuff about the glory of God. A storm brewed ahead, growing more intense as he grew more intense with his chants. He took this as a good omen.

And finally, in a dramatic flair, he pushed the closure with its gleaming angels off the Ark.

Revealing not but sand.

He could hear Kovarian laughing beside him through his shame. He simply couldn’t believe it. All his efforts, his planning, his greatest achievement. And it all came down to a box full of sand.

Suddenly, all the generators and lights, anything electronic, exploded.

Belloq ducked as the only mean to protect himself from the chaos as everything shattered one by one, only lifting his head back up once it all stopped.

The Ark glowed and mist rose from it. This was it. He wasn’t wrong. He was very much right.

He was downright giddy as the mist began forming into shapes resembling people.

Uncountable forms flew off from the Ark flying all around, soaring high into the sky before swooping down through and into the soldiers before him who dropped as each one had a specter go through them, like poisoned rats.

One of the ghosts hovered in front of him.

“It’s beautiful!” he shouted in a daze and he felt a heat began to rise up in him. The most terrible burning sensation.

He heard a scream from beside him. It took all his effort to, but he turned away from the specter over him to look down at Kovarian.

It was a ghastly sight. Streams of red and white poured off her face as she melted like candle wax. The Silent, who oddly had not been effected by the ghosts, stepped past her weeping form and down away from the alter, walking through the dying crowd untouched by the killing mist.

“ _No!_ ” Kovarian screamed hoarsely after the creature, “ _You can’t leave me! You need me! You can’t leave me!_ ”

Belloq screamed as the heat rose in him and he felt himself be torn apart.

\---

River huddled against the pole, eyes squeezed shut, hoping the Doctor had followed her orders and done the same.

The screaming had died down a moment ago and all had been silence and dark, but she still feared to open her eyes.

But she did anyway, blinking rapidly down at the area below. Where before there had been dozens of men, there was nothing but abandoned equipment. There was no sign otherwise of anyone ever being there. Even Belloq and Kovarian remained nothing but a memory in her mind.

And alone on the alter stood the Ark, its lid placed on top as if it had never been removed. It was the only light to be seen.

River pulled on the rope tying her and the Doctor to the busted light pole, finding that it had been mostly sheared off in light of the ghosts from the Ark.

She quickly moved around to face the Doctor.

“John,” she said, shaking him a moment to pull him out of his current stupor.

His eyes blinked open at her and he leaned into her, wrapping his arms around her as if he had never known another person’s touch. River did just the same.

“Come on,” she whispered in his ear, “let’s go home.”


	11. Chapter 11

England

 

“You’ve done your country a great service,” Canton said as River glared at him, “I trust you found the settlement satisfactory.”

“Oh, the money’s fine,” River snapped, “The situation’s totally unacceptable!”

Canton spoke over her as if he didn’t hear that last part, “Well then, I guess that just about wraps it up.”

“Where’s the Ark?” demanded Rory beside her.

“I thought we settled that. The Ark is somewhere very safe,” Canton explained as if to a misbehaving five year old.

“From whom?” River asked.

Her father continued, “The Ark is a source of unspeakable power. It has to be researched!”

“And it will be, I assure you, Dr. Williams, Dr. Song,” Canton said, “We have top men working on it right now?”

“Who?!” River shouted tempted to slam the man’s head against the table repeatedly till he gave her proper answers. She did not go through all that trouble to retrieve the Ark just to have some American bureaucrat yank it out from under her.

Canton glared at her for a moment before saying, “Top. Men.”

\---

The Doctor leaned against the stair rail as he watched River storm down the steps with her father in tow.

He waved at Rory, who waved back before taking a moment to hug his daughter and walk off the other way. The Doctor clung to River’s arm as they walked away from the building opposite Rory.

“What happened? You don’t look very happy,” he said, noting River’s glowering face.

“Fools!” she shouted, “Bureaucratic fools!”

“Hmm, what did they say?”

River continued her rant like she didn’t hear his question, “They don’t know what they got there!”

The Doctor smiled as he clutched River closer.

“Well I know what I’ve got here,” he said smiling at her, “Come on, I’ll buy you a drink.”

“You hate alcohol.”

“Then I won’t by myself one. Oh, and River?”

“Yeah?”

“You own me a new fez.”

\---

_New place._

_New place to stay hidden forevermore._

_Hidden alongside so many other secrets. Such danger here._

_Yes, we will be so safe here._


End file.
